


Glissando

by happymango



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Harlem's Paradise, Introspection, the intersection between music and murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 15:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9498608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happymango/pseuds/happymango
Summary: Cornell Stokes grew up between gun metal and piano strings, steel on all sides.





	

He sees the world like a keyboard before him, black and white and delicate.

He presses down to hear the music of glass and bone and fire, beautiful in the way all his pieces are. People are always surprised he can play, but they shouldn’t be. The piano has been his teacher just as much as the streets, has demanded the same dedication and steady hands.

He looks at people like they fit into the five lines of a staff.

Most people—the staff, the cops, even his own hired guns—fall into a cadence. Steady chords to end a phrase; so easy he can move them with his eyes closed. Most people, not all.

Mariah first. She’s family, and the last he has of it. She’s his warped reflection, his semitone. Only a half-step away from him and yet so wrong; they’re dissonant together.

Mama Mabel was an overture, formidable on her own and beautiful as the start of something greater. She's still there sometimes, an echo, a motif that bends his fingers into familiar patterns.

Pop was the root of a triad, stark and bold and steady. Everything was built around him, even if he pretended not to notice, and with him gone thirds and fifths ring hollow and fall flat. There’s nothing to grab onto anymore.

Shades is an arpeggio, a chord dissected and played out patiently. Hard to trust a man who changes tones like climbing steps, and so he doesn't.

Diamondback, a counterpoint. Always on the periphery, always moving against him, but it works and they’re both richer for it.

Luke Cage is syncopation, an unexpected rhythm. A displacement. A weak beat made strong, upsetting the flow. But Cornell just has to match him. A snap of the wrist, a modulation, a skipped half-beat. Cornell has a gift for improvisations.

And Harlem—Harlem’s the bar line where the notes are spattered like arterial spray.

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so. This was entirely due to getting a friend into Luke Cage and then getting the text "no serious pianist would ever beat a man to death like that. BECAUSE YOUR HANDS" So I was inspired to write something exploring Cornell's relationship with music.


End file.
